Now here is where San Francisco Police Department Commander / fully-license CA attorney Richard Corriea distinguishes betwixt picking up and dropping off, but I don’t know how operational that distinction is currently.

I mean, for example, a cabbie out of a non-San Francisco locale such as Daly City is currently allowed to drop off fares legally but is not allowed to pick up anywhere at SFO. To do so is a misdemeanor. (Even San Francisco hacks are prevented from picking up at SFO without first paying a fee* and waiting in line.) So I guess there’s still a distinction, but Eric is saying there isn’t one anymore as far as TNC’s are concerned.

Here’s what I didn’t know, from Eric’s report of July 16th, 2014:

“Some of the TNC’s are being a bit passive aggressively defiant in that they are telling drivers they will cover the cost of the ticket [which I have heard runs between $220-$600 depending on what they write you up on], but they aren’t telling drivers not to take people to the airport. This makes some of these TNC’s look bad to the CPUC who has given them the right to operate in California. Sidecar has officially told all of it’s drivers to not accept rides to or from SFO and that is easy because riders have to put in their destination when they request a ride. Sidecar is also working on blocking requests to the airport until they can resolve the problem with SFO. Those other TNC’s aren’t doing this.”

If I were a TNC driver, I don’t know how happy I’d be after getting $600 from my employer as compensation for a misdemeanor rap.

I’ll tell you, I don’t know how proud SFGov should be of the existing taxi system.

For example, here’s a fully-licensed and insured and regulated San Francisco taxi taking tourists from SFO to SF in 2010. They died.

Will TNC cars end up catching on fire and killing people? We’ll see.

I’m sure that this sitch will sort itself out sooner or later, but things are pretty messed up right now…

*Back in the 1990’s, some SF taxi drivers would also pay a bribe to get to the front of the line. At SFO, there are SFGov employees called “starters” who organize taxi operations. A system was set up to allow drivers who paid a $5 bribe to improperly get into the “short” line of drivers waiting to pick up arriving passengers. So a driver might end up paying $60 in bribes but get in exchange receive twelve or so lucrative “airport runs” in just one shift. So I guess this was a win-win for the bribe offerer and bribe receiver…

SAN FRANCISCO CONTINUES TO MONITOR TSUNAMI WARNINGPrecautionary Closure of Beaches and Great Highway

San Francisco, CA – The City and County of San Francisco continues to monitor the Tsunami warning issued this morning and is assessing risks to California Coastal areas. As a precaution, the Police Department has closed the upper and lower Great Highway and the National Park Service has closed Ocean Beach, Baker Beach, China Beach, and Fort Funston.

This is in response to the 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan, which caused a tsunami warning to be issued for the US West Coast, the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management (DEM) has activated the City’s Emergency Operations Center. DEM is currently in contact with the California Emergency Management Agency.

The City has not ordered an evacuation. Residents are advised to monitor local media for information updates.”

UPDATE: And here’s his statement:

MAYOR EDWIN M. LEE’S STATEMENT ON THE RECENT EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI IN JAPAN

“On behalf of the residents of the City and County of San Francisco, I extend our deepest condolences to the people of Japan and to the families and friends of those affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck there today.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been impacted by this tragedy. I have contacted the Counsel General of Japan in San Francisco with our expression of sympathy and our willingness to join any international assistance effort.

We will continue to monitor the tsunami warnings that have been issued for the California coastal regions and act accordingly. This is a stark reminder to our City that we must always be prepared for the next disaster to ensure our families are safe.”

What: Topics include how you can do sidewalk landscaping in front of your house, community challenge grants for street improvements, community gardens and Pavement to Parks. Adam Varat will provide details on the application process for these types of improvements.

Do you people prefer PowerPoint presentations pertaining to planning? Perfect. (Personally, I’m getting a little tired of euphamisticadjectives dreamed up by department heads – you know if Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy (1921) came out these days, it would probably be called Better Economy with Great New Improvements! Or something like that. Wasn’t horrible Octavia Boulevard supposed to be a “livable street?”) Anywho, MTA “Traffic Calming” Project Manager Adam Gubser was on hand and available at the Town Hall.

Please join Supervisor Eric Mar, Captain Corriea, and representatives from the Planning Department and the Municipal Transportation Agency as we discuss traffic calming proposals and pedestrian safety. We invite all community members to share your suggestions for better streets, transportation and neighborhood improvements.

For more information please contact the Office of Supervisor Eric Mar at (415) 554-7410 or email at marstaff@sfgov.org

Let’s say you’re the driver, perhaps in a first person shooter video game or whatever, what do you do here? SFPD Richmond Station Captain Richard Corriea has his troops fired up about traffic safety, so this could be another sting operation using an undercover babushka lady or pink bag mafiosa as bait. Therefore, you gots to yield to let her across. But what happens then?

Click to expand, it’s fun to play along:

What happens then is that inbound traffic in the slow lane (seen on the right) doesn’t stop. Zing, zing, zing they go past. Unseen is the Steven Fowler-type behind you in a BMW (it’s always a BMW, which model does Fowler probably have by the way, M5, M3, X5? something like that) laying on his horn because you, the idiot driver ahead of him, doesn’t know how to drive.

Should you go forward as well? That’s a failure to yield moving violation right there, but by waiting for her are you encouraging her to do something dangerous, like crossing the damn street in the Richmond, the biggest danger, by far, in her life?

On it goes for half a minute, the pedestrian waits for the three-series behind you to catapult launch around you up the slow lane and then the ped makes it across.

This is insanity. Shouldn’t this be an electronically-controlled intersection with traffic lights instead of just a couple of stop signs for cross traffic? Why aren’t there traffic lights and countdown pedestrain signals for the whole of Geary Boulevard in the Richmond all the way up to Avenue 30 or 40 or something?

Money? We can’t afford it? Geary Boulevard is too wide and too busy for this kind of half-assed, a couple of stop signs are good enough, we’ll repaint those crosswalk lines when we feel like it attitude.